Monday Meet Up & Monday Made It...on Tuesday

Hey there!  With just starting off in blogging world, this is a Monday of firsts for me!  I am getting to participate in 2 things that I see so often on other teacher's great blogs, and am so excited! 



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The first is linking up with The Teaching Tribune to share 3 things about myself. 



Now then, this is also my first official time to link up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!  I have followed this blog and all of the great ideas that have come her way for the last 2 summers, but have never gotten the chance to participate....until now! I hope I'm not the only one that feels that they can now cross an item off of their bucket list by taking part in Monday Made Its! 

My disclaimer is having a 10 month old has tied my hands in some ways from doing as much as I would like to so far this summer in terms of school planning!  However, we have been having a great summer: daily walks, daily naps, and lots of play time in between! 

 

 

My only Monday Made-It so far is a mini-boggle ELA station.  And notice, I haven't created a document to go with it yet. I have 8 of these small plastic containers, each filled with 10 not-so-random letters.  Students will pull one of the containers, write their ten letters on their paper, and then create as many words as they can using only those letters.  I haven't decided yet for sure, but I'm thinking the paper will have spaces for 2 letter-words, 3 letter-words, and 4 letter-words.  I just can't decide for sure if I should include spaces for big words.  Probably so! 

I got the tiles at Mardel a few weeks ago - 88 tiles for 4.99 (I think!).  I need to add a label to the rectangular container and I want to number off each of the small ones too.  I also want to buy a few more packs of these letters for some other stations. 

The only other thing I have thought of doing for the classroom so far is framing a few photos of my son, Max.  They are currently sitting in the living room though, and I am laying next to a sleeping Max, and there is NO way I am getting up and risking waking this boy! 

More made-its to come in the weeks to come!  Thanks for looking!

A Full Shopping Cart is a Happy Shopping Cart!

I wanted to share today what professional books are currently in my Amazon shopping cart.  Before I do that, these are the books that I have already bought and am reading this summer. 

"Guided Math" by Laney Sammons:  I have heard about this book for several years.  When I saw some other bloggers doing a book study on it, I decided to go ahead and join in.  I haven't actually discussed anything yet, but I have read their posts and have thoroughly enjoyed reading the book too.  We have currently read the first 4 chapters.  This last chapter was about whole group instruction and how it does have a place in the Math instruction block as well.  The book had various examples, such as read-alouds with math concepts, making KWL charts, and doing mini-lessons.  The next chapter is Using Guided Math with Small Groups.  If you'd like to join in, the main blogger is The Primary Gal, and the next chapter is talked about every Friday.  Check her out HERE.

The other academic book that I am reading is "Reading in the Wild" by Donalyn Miller.  She is the author of "The Book Whisperer", which I will be honest, I started a couple of summers ago and never finished.  One of the concepts that I know from the first book is starting the day off with kids reading from the very beginning of the day.  I love this idea....but it's not one that I've been able to readily incorporate at the schools that I've been at.  This newest book is supposed to give a lot of hands on ideas on how to make kids lifelong readers.  What did teachers do 20 years ago when they didn't have access to all of these great items?  I don't know exactly, but something had to have worked since I still love reading! 


I have also bought "Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading" though it doesn't seem to be a read-all-at-once type of text.  I am looking forward to being able to pull it out though and use it for different comprehension strategies! 



Okay, so on to my shopping cart list.  I'm just going to post pictures of these, since I don't know too much about them yet.  But come Thursday, when I can press "Check out now", I will be one happy girl!

Okay, so I lied.  I'm going to say something.  Chapter 3 in the Guided Math book talks all about Math Stretches beginning your day.  My day starts with Language Arts and Reading, so I'm not planning on doing the Math Stretches until the beginning of math time.  But every day of the week, I am planning to have a certain stretch (number pattern, data, number of the day, etc.) to do with my students.  This book is supposed to be chock full of ideas for these stretches.  Nerdy teacher alert - I am so excited to be buying this book! 

 

 

 

 

 

 I am going to have to talk about this one as well!  Though I haven't read this 2nd edition, I have heard some great things about it and the things that these two sister-writers have tweaked in their Daily 5 system.  However, I have to say, I did read the first one.  If the 2nd edition is anything like the 1st, and you haven't read it, then please do!  This is the most reader-friendly text that I have ever read! 

 

 

 

 

There is a volume 2 of this book also.  Baby steps, Kelsey, baby steps! 

So these are the books that are currently in my shopping cart.  What books are in yours?

Beginning Afresh!

I've thought and thought and thought about doing this.  Sadly one of my biggest hang-ups was not being able to come up with a name I liked.  But burlap and books - two of my favorite things! Easy peasy!

I can't wait to share with you what I am learning for this coming school year!  This will be my 7th year teaching, and according to my principal, he is "99.98 percent sure I will be in the same classroom and the same grade" this next year.  What that means?  Another year in 2nd!  After a really negative year a few years ago teaching second graders, last year with my group of 2nd's was such a blessing (or maybe it was the additional fact that I was out the first two months on maternity leave?!).  Either way, it was truly a good group of kids - so another year in 2nd sounds fine with me!

Some of my goals for this next school year:
1.  Incorporate Daily 5 into my ELA/Reading Block.  I always have the best of intentions with guided reading and stations.....and I tend to end up doing so much work trying to get stations to be sufficient that I bomb on other areas (i.e. being prepared for guided reading lessons!)

2.  Incorporate Guided Math and Math Workshop.  I'm reading the Guided Math book right now and keeping up with other bloggers that are discussing about it weekly.  It's been an easy read and I hope to keep up with them and begin contributing to their discussion! 

I know there was one more big goal for my year...and wouldn't you know - I didn't write it down, so where it is stored in this little brain of mine?!  I'm sure it will turn up again! 

I am also changing around the theme of my classroom for this next year.  I had originally thought of doing a camping theme.  While I love the idea....I can't help but think about all of the work that that sounds like!  Tents, and sleeping bags, and tackle boxes, oh my!  Soooooo I'm fairly certain I'm going to switch it to a red and aqua theme with some yellow accents.  The only thing is now I can't decide if I want black as a base color to go with it (chalkboard style) or burlap and brown (rustic-ish).

What theme are you going with this year in your classroom?